I’d learned about GORUCK, a military-grade backpack company, through the indispensable Pack Light Go Fast blog. It was also through Pack Light Go Fast that I learned about the GORUCK Challenge, a team event which puts its participants through a Special Forces-inspired physical and mental ringer. The Challenge always struck me as a bit too intense for me – 15-20 miles of running, PT exercises, all while carrying a backpack filled with about 50 pounds of bricks. I didn’t see the appeal.

My attitude towards taking the Challenge changed when I sawpictures and readabout the capstone, alumni-only event in the Colorado Rockies, Ascent. It looked like an absolutely amazing, inspiring trip. If I had to complete a GORUCK Challenge to be eligible to go, fine, that’s what I’d have to do.

Of course, this was easier said than done. While I was fairly athletic in high school and college, I’d spent most of the last seven years working at a desk, with only intermittent periods of committed exercise. I hadn’t gone for a run of more than two miles since college. I was out of shape and would have to lose a bunch of weight to even feel like I was capable of trying the Challenge.

But I wanted to challenge myself. I was a few months away from turning 30, engaged to be married a few months after that, and feeling like I was about to enter a major new phase of my life. Finding out if I was tough enough to go through this Challenge seemed incredibly important. This past October I began considering doing a GORUCK Challenge. I knew I needed at least three to four months to get in better shape, but that timing would put me in a Challenge in winter.

I decided the Challenge in Baltimore at 1 a.m. on February 11th was the best date for me, winter weather be damned. I spent at least a week with my browser parked on the registration page. I’d fill out all the information, including my credit card, and panic, abandoning the registration attempt for another night of thought. When I finally hit submit, I was overcome with a wave of panic and nausea. What had I just committed myself to?

The fine folks of GORUCK like to say that anyone can do the Challenge, that it’s more mental than physical. This is certainly true, but I’m glad that I didn’t do my Challenge on the day I signed up. Had I, I would have either quit or endured some serious pain to finish. Fortunately for me, I had time to train to get myself physically ready for the Baltimore Challenge.

When I signed up, I was a bit above 240 pounds and in just about the worst shape in my life. I figured I’d want to drop about 30 pounds to be ready (and to not unnecessarily weigh down any of my teammates in buddy carries). Since I was effectively starting from scratch physically, I built up slowly on my cardio and strength training. I did a mix of strength conditioning with free weights, kettle bells, and body weight exercise, as well as indoor and outdoor cardio, and bootcamp classes that were influenced by crossfit, but not actually crossfit workouts. I aimed to do a lot of muscle confusion and emphasized building up leg strength in particular, as I’d be traveling a long way under weight.

Short runs on the treadmill evolved into longer treadmill runs. Eventually I moved to running outdoors and built up my mileage to the point where I began to do weighted ruck runs. Let me tell you, losing 20 pounds then adding it all back in the form of bricks really shows you how bad a place you started from. To make matters worse, through the course of my training I found out that I had exercise-induced asthma. Getting that diagnosed and taking medication helped, though I as still susceptible to asthma attacks in my more intense training sessions.

With a month to go in my training, I’d gotten my non-weighted runs up to 14 miles. In the closing weeks I pushed my ruck runs up and got to 14 miles as well. One thing that’s worth noting is that running with a backpack filled with 6 bricks and a few liters of water, which approaches 50 pounds, is less like running and more like a steady jog. The value of training with the ruck on was to break it in and get my body used to moving with the weight. Ruck runs also build up a ton of needed leg strength.

By the time the week of the Challenge rolled around, I’d lost 30 pounds. I felt great. I was healthy, though concerned about the chances of having asthma attacks during the Challenge. While I don’t think it’s possible to be truly ready for a Challenge which is always different, I felt physically and mentally prepared for it. I knew I was in for a whole bunch of Suck, but thought I’d be able to gut through it as long as I didn’t get injured.

The weather in the Mid-Atlantic has been unseasonably warm all winter. A week out the forecast for the night of the Challenge was calling for clear skies and temperatures in the upper 40s. But right before the Challenge, the weather took a turn for the worse. Suddenly it was going to be in the 30s, with a chance of snow. One of my greatest sources for worry had been what I would wear during the Challenge. I’d developed a good system of layers for running in cold weather, but I hadn’t trained in the rain and I expected that we’d be getting wet at some point in the Challenge, regardless of precipitation (the previous Challenge in Baltimore included time in the Inner Harbor).

I eventually decided on a water resistant set of gear that would hopefully dry quickly once wet, but still be breathable enough to keep me cool if I got too hot. I had changes of socks, gloves, and baselayer in my ruck, along with snacks for along the way. I was definitely nervous about my choice of clothing, but at a certain point I had to stop worrying and just do the Challenge.

GORUCK Challenge Class 110 started at 1 AM in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore. When we started, the temperature was in the low 30s and a mix of rain and sleet were falling. One of my concerns was starting a Challenge in the middle of the night. If you’re worried about this, don’t be – your adrenaline will be pumping so hard that you will not be tired in the slightest.

Class 110 started off with 26 people, about a third of whom were GORUCK Tough alumni. Our Challenge was lead by Cadre Lou and a new Cadre, Devin (Devin would be lead cadre on Class 111 the following night). After signing our death waivers and having a basic safety talk, Cadre Lou set us off and running. We moved towards a park not too far from Fells and were quickly doing Indian runs around it. We ran for a while, working on a pace that everyone could keep up with. In addition to our brick-filled rucks, every class has to have a team coupon (redeemable for extra good livin’). Ours was a twenty-five pound, five foot long slosh pipe, filled with water and nicknamed Carl Gustav. We were also given an extra ruck filled with a case of beer. And since one of our classmates was having a birthday, he was given a chunk of concrete that probably weight around twenty-five pounds. As we ran, each of these coupons were kept at the front of our line, an early exercise in teamwork.

We did Indian runs for a couple miles and then were brought into a park to have an orientation to PT exercises. As we entered the park, the sleet had shifted to snow. This is not orientation in the college freshman sense, with parties and too much flavored vodka. Instead orientation was an opportunity to do a lot of exercises until we got them right. Push-ups, flutter kicks, squats, military press, mountain climbers, lunges, buddy carries, and more that I’m surely forgetting. This was undoubtedly the hardest part of the Challenge for me. While I had trained with a lot of these PT exercise motions, I’d done almost no training with an extra 50 pounds on my back. Not training PT exercises with a ruck on was a mistake I will not repeat if I ever do a Challenge again. I gutted through it, but felt pretty awful and was worried that if we were in for another 10+ hours of this, I might not make it.

Fortunately for me, we moved on to our first mission around 3am (no watches are allowed during a GORUCK Challenge, but my guess is we did 1.5-2 hours of running, PT and exercises). GORUCK began integrating missions into their Challenges last year and the missions both provide a closer replication of Special Forces training and move the Challenge more clearly into a leadership development model that tests teamwork and mental strength, as well as physical fitness.

In our first mission, we had to navigate our class across the park we were in while escaping detection by our cadre, who were guarding our next rally point. We broke into teams and moved low and slow across a few hundred yards of grass and hills. Much of our movement was through low-crawling. It had been a mix of snow and sleet for a few hours, the ground was soaked and beginning to accumulate. Between this and our PT exercises, we were all soaked to the bone. I had water sloshing in my shoes and if I squeezed my hands into fists, water would come streaming out of my gloves. It was so wet that I realized all my agonizing over what to wear had been a joke, nothing would have stood up to this wet onslaught.

Movement was incredibly slow as our teams pressed forward. At one point, we spotted the cadre and had to hunker down for a long wait. Given how cold and wet we were, this part of the mission sucked particularly hard. But still, I was having fun and embracing the Suck made it easier to keep working together as a team. By the time we were making it to our objective, though, the Cadre had spotted us and we had failed the mission.

When the mission had started, we were told that if we were spotted, we’d have to low-crawl all the way back down to our starting point. Given that we’d low-crawled most of the way there, this apparently no longer seemed like a suitable punishment for us. Instead it was back to running and a new mission. Along the way we picked up a new coupon – a filthy, discarded couch which we would have to carry the rest of the Challenge, along with a busted up tube television.

I don’t want to reveal too much else about the content of Class 110’s Challenge. I think the mystery of what you’ll be doing in a Challenge is a big part of the mental challenge itself. That said, there are a couple more points I want to make.

After about six hours of snow and sleet, the sun rose and we had a bit of a break to refill our water and eat some food. Shortly after that, I was tapped to be team leader for our third mission. Serving as team leader tested me in a way I hadn’t expected to be tested. I’ve never served in the military and I was a GORUCK Challenge rookie, but watching how our previous team leaders had operated gave me some clues as to how to fill this role. My main responsibilities included keeping an eye as to how people were doing and if they needed breaks, as well as liaising with the Cadre about our mission and mitigating various punishments inflicted on us were key parts, as was navigating the class. Being team leader afforded me an opportunity to learn more about my strengths and my weaknesses than I probably would not have had otherwise. As a result I’ve spent more time thinking about this phase of the Challenge than any other since it was completed.

Since it’s common to every Challenge class, I have to say a couple words about our giant freaking log. Our final mission included carrying a fifteen foot log that easily weighed over 800 pounds and possibly closer to 1000 [Update: Hearing Cadre Lou in a podcast on the Challenge, I have to revise my estimates upwards. This thing was definitely well north of 1000 pounds, could be as high as 1500 pounds]. In addition to this, we had two smaller logs – each over 200 pounds – to go along with our couch, our slosh pipe, our rock, and our extra weighted ruck. Our big log was completely irregular in shape, making it a real challenge to get people of different heights positioned in ways that distributed the weight evenly. I think most every one’s experience was either bent over too far or with it crushing them downward. We had some real heroes during this part of the Challenge, but I can’t say I was upset when we were given permission to put the logs down and start running towards our finishing point.

There was a point on our run back to Fells Point where I knew I was going to finish and a tremendous feeling of excitement washed over me. I had trained for months and worried about my ability to do the Challenge. I was going to finish without injury (actually, this was despite myself as I took two hard falls while carrying multiple coupons – I was seriously lucky I didn’t get hurt). And I was going to get the GORUCK Tough patch that would quietly speak towards my hard work.

Class 110 completed the GORUCK Challenge in a bit under twelve hours. We finished in Fells Point, right where we started. I don’t know the exact mileage we covered, but it was long and it was hard. Mother Nature fought us tooth and nail the first six hours and really heavy things fought us the rest of the way. But we came together as a team and built the bonds we needed to get through the Challenge. While I was able to escape injury, a few others in Class 110 had to fight through serious pain to finish and I can’t begin to say how much I respect the heart and grit these members of our team displayed.

I’m GORUCK Tough and I’m proud of my accomplishment. If you’re reading this and remotely curious if you could do it, know this: you can and you should. Maybe this Challenge isn’t for everyone, but it is for everyone who is interested in seeing what they’re made of. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and you’ll join a community of extraordinary people who know that they are capable of incredible things. Find a GORUCK Challenge in your area and do the work to join this community, I’ll be waiting for you.

…As an end note, I want to extend special thanks to the people who encouraged me to do the Challenge, who helped me get ready for it, and who got me through it: my loving and understanding fiance, Lori; Sophie Pollitt-Cohen, Jason McCarthy, Cadre Lou, Cadre Brian, and Cadre Devin of GORUCK; Devin Maier of Balance Gym; Uri of Pack Light, Go Fast; Mike Petrucci of ITS Tactical; and every single member of GORUCK Tough Class 110.

6 bricks wrapped with duct tape, saran wrap & bubble wrap and suspended to the top of the ruck with velcro tape

Of the food I brought, I only ate 2 of the Gel Shots and one pack of Peanut M&Ms. I never had a chance to change into any of my dry clothes. I also realized early on that packing my food in the Brick Bag, at the bottom of my ruck, was a big mistake. It should have been much more accessible. I refilled my Camelback once along the way.

In hindsight, I probably would have packed less clothing – maybe only extra socks – and taken less food. Less is more and in the end I probably carried 2+ pounds of stuff for 12 hours that I had no need for at all. Alternatively, I could have swapped these extra things out for beer, as Advanced Cellular Repair Technology was a welcome addition to as the Challenge went on…

Outside Magazine recently ran a feature story on the explosion of obstacle racing in recent years. According to Nick Heil, in the last year, “roughly a million people signed up for events in the four most popular series: Spartan Race, Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash, and Muddy Buddy.” These extreme physical challenges certainly allow individuals to showcase their toughness and the events won’t be confused with a casual half-marathon on even pavement.

Unmentioned in Heil’s piece is a challenge which, while substantially smaller than these mega brands, is showing explosive growth in its own right: the GORUCK Challenge. Organized by the military-style backpack company GORUCK, the Challenge is a team event, never a race, and up to 30 people participate in each class. And while the obstacle races above seek to replicate elements of the military’s basic training programs, the GORUCK Challenge strives to replicate elite forces training. Jason McCarthy, GORUCK’s founder, and lead cadre Brian Richardson, met during their Green Beret Selection course. It is this experience which the GORUCK Challenge most closely strives to replicate.

The GORUCK Challenge markets itself as being “8-10 hours. 15-20 miles.” That said, their motto is “Under promise, over deliver.” Challenges have no set time and no announced course, but they will commonly go well over 10 hours and well over 20 miles (In fact, I’ve heard of recent Challenges going over 16 hours and as far as 27 miles). Unlike the larger obstacle races, there are no special obstacles that the people doing the Challenge must overcome. The Challenge moves from city to city and aims to profile the best parts of a location, be it monuments or bridges or famous beaches.

There are, however, some common elements common to every GORUCK Challenge. The first is the ruck – everyone must bring a backpack (preferably a GORUCK bag) with them. If you’re under 150 pounds, you must have four bricks in the bag; if you’re over 150, the requirement is for six bricks (teams must also share an additional 25 pound-plus weight of their own choosing). Thus a 180 pound person doing the Challenge will carry a bag that could weigh close to fifty pounds, with drinking water. The second common element is that, as described by GORUCK Challenge Director Sophie Pollitt-Cohen, “there will be a lot of the Challenge – whether you want to measure the Challenge in hours or miles to go before you sleep, you’re going to do a lot.” Whether you’re running laps on the biggest set of stairs a city has to offer, doing PT exercises in shallow surf, or doing bear crawls on the beach, the Challenge will change your definition of intense.

The third common element is perhaps the most defining one of the GORUCK Challenge: the log. Somewhere along the way, the team will be given a large log – a found object that could be a full-on tree, or a heavy railroad tie. The point is it’s big, it’s wooden and it will weigh hundreds of pounds. The team will be responsible for moving it for a significant portion of their Challenge.

GORUCK founder McCarthy describes the importance of the log in the process of a Challenge. “The log is a great metaphor for the Challenge. When it begins, there’s total disbelief at how heavy it is. For the first hour, the class struggles against working together and assumes that they”ll be allowed to stop before long.”

“During the second hour, there’s a slow acceptance and recognition of the need to work together.” McCarthy gets excited as he reaches the conclusion, “In the third hour, the class just doesn’t give a shit. They’ve figured out their system and how to implement it as a team.”

And yes, in case you missed it, McCarthy is saying that the class will often have to carry logs that weigh more than 600-700 pounds for over three hours. The process is one where individuals must move past their breaking points and learn to work as a team.

As a result, while being a muscular Super Man may work for something like Tough Mudder, it doesn’t guarantee success at the GORUCK Challenge. In the context of replicating the training of Special Forces operators, working together as a team is critical. Lead Cadre Brian notes that, “Leadership comes in different forms.” McCarthy adds, “Leadership isn’t just being able to push a tractor. Everybody has a strength.”

Before Brian signed on to help lead the GORUCK Challenge, he was skeptical that anyone would actually want to participate in it. “I thought the GORUCK Challenge would be nonsense. I had to do this sort of training, but I was paid to do it. Why would someone pay to go through this?” Richardson then went to witness an early Challenge. He says, “I saw how the Challenge brought people together and I believed in it.”

This sentiment is echoed by recent participants. Devin Maier, 31, the Managing Director of Balance Gym in Washington DC was in Class 095. He says his favorite part of doing his first Challenge was “the camaraderie and great sense of accomplishment once you finish.” Likewise, Collins Roth, a forty-one year old father of four, reflects, “It’s not for everyone – you have to be ready for a real mental and physical beat-down. But it was unbelievably fun.”

McCarthy’s perspective on the Challenge shows his deep commitment to the idea that this is an experience that is valuable for the participants and something that they’ll want to share. “The ultimate goal is to bring people together and allow them into a community for organizing themselves.” Given how many people do multiple Challenges and how the Challenge has grown in popularity, McCarthy seems to be hitting his mark.

GORUCK Challenge recently put on their 100th class. They’re expanding beyond the main event to include special, alumni-only events. This past summer Ascent brought GORUCK Tough alums to the Rockies, where they summited as many 14,000 foot peaks in four days as they could. Beached will put people through four days of survival in and around the waters of Key West. They’re also doing a spy craft style event called Trek and are now doing scavenger hunt events in a core set of major US cities. Each of these events seeks to replicate the field craft skill testing America’s elite military forces go through.

As more and more people turn away from marathons and triathlons to more extreme obstacle races, expect the GORUCK Challenge to keep growing, as individuals seek to test themselves not just as athletes, but as team members and leaders.

This is the second post of a three-part series. In my first post, I looked at the GORUCK brand history and its recent growth. The final piece will look at my own experience in GORUCK Challenge Class 110, this February in Baltimore.

One quote from my interview with GORUCK founder Jason McCarthy which didn’t make it into my Huffington Post piece, but I still love is this on the GR1, GORUCK’s flagship pack.

The GR1 is our version of Levi’s 501. It will be around forever…

I love the commitment to simplicity and timelessness embodied in this comment. Moreover, now that I have my own GR1, I see a pack that is designed to last a life time, both individually and in its style. This could be made for the next 100 years and be just as good then as it is today.

Jason McCarthy, a former Green Beret and the founder of the rucksack company GORUCK, says a lot of things that command your attention. But when he speaks about his company’s growth in the last year and says, “GORUCK has the most passionate brand following in the world,” my ears really pick up. What makes it even more remarkable (putting aside that he’s just put his small backpack company in league with Harley-Davidson) is that he says this with complete humility and surprise.

To understand how this could be possible, you have to look at how McCarthy has baked his experience in the Special Forces into his company, his product, and what has evolved into the company’s strongest grassroots P.R. machine, the GORUCK Challenge.

The concept of starting a backpack company came almost entirely around the name, GORUCK. McCarthy was still in the Special Forces at the time and married to a diplomat who was stationed in West Africa. He planned on joining his wife and doing work as a security consultant for wealthy individuals in Cote d’Ivoire, one of the most dangerous spots on the planet.

In the Special Forces, bags aren’t bags, they’re rucks. Thus while overly paranoid zombie aficionados may have go bags stored in their closet, Special Forces operators have go to hell rucks packed with gear, grenades, and ammo in the trunks of their Humvees. In short, a go ruck.
While he didn’t stay in Africa long, he did spend time consulting on how to build go rucks for civilians. The bags he used had to be tough, as if they were ever going to be used, they’d be used in perilous situations.

The three rules of the Special Forces are: Always look cool. Never get lost. And if you get lost, look cool. These rules merged with the needs of a go ruck and GORUCK was born, with the goal of creating bags along the lines of “GQ meets war.” GORUCK bags are stylish in their utilitarian simplicity. “If there’s a question about if it’s necessary, remove it,” McCarthy says. “Less is more and more is lazy.”

I’ll hazard that a tiny fraction of GORUCK’s success has been in the style or the simplicity of their bags. That helps, but the quality of their construction is a much bigger factor. Many backpack companies tell their customers that their bags are tough, GORUCK knows their bags are near-indestructible and stands by them without fear.

Every GORUCK bag is made by American workers in their factory in Bozeman, Montana or in Colorado. They use ridiculously tough fabric and even tougher stitching methods. The average GR1, their flagship ruck, takes three and a half hours to make by hand. In GORUCK’s parlance, the bags aren’t made — they’re built.

McCarthy has an unwavering belief in the concept of American labor. Using American labor and building products slowly with high-quality fabrics costs more money. The aforementioned GR1 costs $295. But the tradeoff is that McCarthy can stand by his products. “We can have the highest attention to detail in the world and the highest quality in the world.”

One of the first things that attracted me to GORUCK was actually the company’s blog, GORUCK News. It’s unlike any corporation’s blog I’ve ever seen, with a heavy emphasis on photography (McCarthy is a remarkably talented photographer) and frequent posts profiling the production processes of other companies that make their products here in the USA. GORUCK News’ three main themes are the US military, US manufacturing and local establishments McCarthy comes across in his travels. He’ll reach out to companies of made in USA gear that he uses, likes, and respects and profiles their production process behind the scenes at their factories. This has ranged from new companies like Survival Straps to Annin Flagmakers (since 1847), Danner boots and Randolph Engineering, which have been around for generations making things the same way.

GORUCK has found the use of photography to sell and explain their products, especially the reasons behind the high cost associated with them, as seminal to their sales process. As a result, McCarthy sees his posts profiling other American manufacturers as something he hopes they’ll follow. “They’re busy building great things,” he says. “The GORUCK News posts are a modern version of how to sell their products and their story.”

While the ethic of supporting other American manufactures endears McCarthy to these companies, the single largest driver of GORUCK’s growth has been an intense physical event known as the GORUCK Challenge. There are a handful of tough races that seek to replicate aspects of military basic training in them. The GORUCK Challenge aims much higher. McCarthy says, “This is not basic training. It’s elite training.”

The GORUCK Challenge markets itself as a team event – never a race – which last 8-10 hours and covers 15-20 miles. That would be fairly intimidating by almost anyone’s standards, but the kicker is the Challenge’s motto “Under Promise. Over Deliver.” This means Challenges have gone over 14 hours and as far as 27 miles. Those who complete it earn “GORUCK Tough” patches to go along with a remarkable sense of achievement.

The popularity of the GORUCK Challenge is astounding. In little more than a year, they are approaching 100 events completed. The Challenge is so successful that it forces the question as whether GORUCK is a bag company or a company that puts on team-building physical challenges. The tension – or synergy – of these projects is fascinating and challenges the notion of how a small business can build a loyal customer base. After all, when selling bags with lifetime guarantees, GORUCK isn’t seeking people who want to replace their GR1 every year. They want to create brand loyalists who evangelize not only the quality of their rucks, but the lifestyle they represent: good livin’.

This is the first post of a three part series. I’ll look more deeply at the GORUCK Challenge in my second post on GORUCK. The third will be an account of my own experience taking the GORUCK Challenge in Baltimore this coming February. Stay tuned for more.

Before I get into the details of my experience doing the Mud Dog Run this past Saturday in Frederick, Maryland, I want to talk a bit about the GORUCK Radio Ruck. I was loaned bag by the fine folks at GORUCK, so I had a couple days to test it out as my every day bag, prior to running with it.

GORUCK bags consistently seek a couple design notes. First, they are very simple, with limited exterior pockets, no brand labels, and small amounts of MOLLE webbing. Second, they are made with 1000D Cordura fabric. It’s a heavy, tough fabric and though it is not waterproof, it will keep things dry inside in very wet conditions. Given that GORUCK was started by a member of the Special Forces and the bags are designed for military-grade applications, they are made to take a serious beating and survive without trouble.

The Radio Ruck is a 17L backpack – the second smallest of their backpacks. The first thing that stood out to me upon receiving it was how tough the fabric was, almost to the point of being rigid. The bags improve with use and I found it only took a few minutes for the straps to adapt to my frame. That brings me to the second thing I noticed – how wide and well-padded the straps on the Radio Ruck are. The bag doesn’t have any sternum or waist straps, so well-fitting and comfortable should straps are key. One of the most impressive features of the bag was the laptop compartment on the back panel. It’s also well-padded and designed to take a laptop into combat. For people like me who aren’t likely to see combat, let alone combat with a laptop, in the foreseeable future, what this means is that the padding is completely adequate to have a laptop right up against your spine as you go through whatever activities it is that you do.

The interior of the bag has two organizing pockets on the front panel, with a mesh pocket on the back panel. There’s a velcro opening on the top, below the grab handle that can be used to pass the tubing for a hydration bladder out. And that’s about it. It’s 17L, so it was more than adequate to hold my gym clothes and shows, a Kindle, my MacBook Air, and charger. It’s actually about the perfect size for a day pack.

I was able to get this Radio Ruck because it was no longer needed at its intended destination for the weekend, the Philadelphia GORUCK Challenge. While the Mud Dog Run was only 5k and the GORUCK Challenge likely covered 15-20+ miles, I felt it my obligation to put the Radio Ruck through as much torture as I could in the short race. I think I succeeded.

The Mud Dog Run is located on a farm in Frederick, Maryland. It’s sponsored by the Flying Dog Brewery, one of my favorite mid-Atlantic breweries. It’s a 5 kilometer obstacle course, featuring, not surprisingly, a lot of mud. I’d guess between 1000-1200 people did it this weekend, as each wave was capped at 300 people. I registered on the last day, so was in the last wave to go. I had the Radio Ruck with me, packed with a 2L hydration bladder, a change of clothes, a pair of sandals for after the race, and a small assortment of snacks for post-race consumption (Peanut M&Ms & Clif Shot Bloks).

I started in around the middle of the pack. Going in, I’d decided that since I’m just getting back into running and no speedster, I would go at a pace that I could maintain the whole race, but seek to go through every obstacle as fast as possible. This seemed to work pretty well, because by the time we’d crossed the first four obstacles, I’d passed a bunch of people and was cruising. I ended up finishing around the top 20% for my wave and while I didn’t break any land speed records, I felt good about my performance.

What made the Mud Dug Run fun was the obstacles. None were particularly challenging, so long as you embraced getting muddy and wet. The third obstacle was a long, boggy stretch of mud that ended in a 30-40 foot long pond. The pond floor was mud and it sloped down into the water and up out of it. I’m about 6’4″ and at its deepest, the water was around my mid-thigh. Coming out of the pond, the uphill mud was really slick and I slipped, falling flat in the water to my upper chest. It was a cool day and the water was pretty icy, so from this point forward I was wet and muddy. Just to be sure that I stayed wet, two obstacles later we encountered a giant slip ‘n’ slide, with hoses spraying down a big plastic tarp. Most people were trying to surf down it, but I figured I was already wet and did a headfirst slide down the hill. Good fun.

The GORUCK Radio Ruck, post-mud & flour

Things go more fun heading into an obstacle that required you to crawl low to the ground through deep mud. We had been warned by race officials that this obstacle, which was under a low tent, had metal bars across it and a few people had cracked their heads on these bars already. I decided the easiest way to ensure I was low and didn’t get stuck would be to take off the Radio Ruck and push it in front of me while doing a belly crawl in the obstacle. It worked and my head was safe, but the Radio Ruck was almost completely covered in mud.

I’m a bit confused on their order, but there are two others worth mentioning. One was another crawling obstacle, this one filled with white flour. In addition to crawling 20 feet through a few inches of flour, there were two women dumping bags of flour on me while I did it. Since I was one of the few competitors wearing a backpack, I heard one of them say, “Make sure to get the backpack,” while I was crawling through. It’s not shocking, but since I was already wet, the flour stuck both to me and the Radio Ruck with no problem. The other fun obstacle was a web of criss-crossed bungee cords that we had to duck and climb through. The Radio Ruck made things a bit difficult, so after the first couple feet I took it off my back and just threw it the remainder of the distance, then charged through to get it. Naturally it had landed in a deep pocket of mud. Oh well, it’s just a small taste of what the bag would have experienced in Philly…

Over the last kilometer or so, I was just cruising. I passed a few groups of people from the previous wave and by the time I entered the penultimate obstacle, I could hear a live band playing to the crowd and smell the fire pit which I would have to jump over as my final obstacle. I finished in a sprint and felt pretty good about my time. After catching my breath, I headed over to the beer garden for a post-race pint. The Radio Ruck was completely covered in mud and flour, prompting a few people to ask me how the bag had gotten so dirty.

One last word on the bag. At $245, the GORUCK Radio Ruck is not cheap. But it’s made in the USA by American workers and should last a lifetime. And if it doesn’t last a lifetime, GORUCK’s lifetime guarantee means you can get a busted bag fixed by the company. Compare that to a $100 pack from North Face or some other adventure company that’s made in China and will be blown out in a year of moderate use, and GORUCK strikes me as reasonably priced. When I got home on Saturday, I cleaned the Radio Ruck so I could return as close to the condition I’d received it as possible. I didn’t take the “after” shot, but I was pretty impressed by how well the bag cleaned up after all the mud it had been through. From a quality perspective, this was actually the test that I was most interested in and the Radio Ruck really shined. While I’m not certain that I would take the smaller Radio Ruck over the somewhat larger GR1, I can definitely see myself getting a GORUCK bag in the not too distant future.

I’ll be doing the Mud Dog Run this weekend. It’s sponsored in part by Flying Dog Brewery. Here’s the description:

The Mud Dog Run is a fun, high intensity, obstacle course run around one of Frederick, Maryland’s most beautiful farms. Starting at Crumland Farms, the Mud Dog Run will encompass 5 Kilometers of very tough terrain. The course will contain obstacles such as, climbing walls, cargo nets, mud pits, and featuring Crumland Farms 2011 corn maze (do not get lost!). This race is not for the faint of heart. If you like a challenge and some food topped off with Flying Dog beer at the finish, then the Mud Dog Run is just your type of race.

I’ve recently started working out religiously. I’m trying to get in shape for my wedding this coming spring. I was in pretty phenomenal shape in college and have watched that slowly disappear as I’ve spent years sitting at a desk like a lazy slug. It’s not been a fun process and it feels great to start shedding the pounds through some challenging workouts.

While I’m trying to get in shape, I also am holding onto the goal that in the future (hopefully before, but if not, after the wedding) I will do a GORUCK Challenge, a hardcore physical challenge put on by GORUCK, builders of some completely bomber military-style backpacks. I have a long way to go get to the point where I can handle their event, which often stretches over more than 20 miles and 10 hours. I’ve never been interested in running a marathon, but the GORUCK Challenge strikes a chord in me. I want to be able to do this, to meet the challenge. I’m viewing the Mud Dog Run as a miniature trial in my training, though the specifics have little in common to the GORUCK Challenge other than both being rough and tumble outdoor physical events.

Though GORUCK is based in Montana, the GORUCK Challenge has an office in DC. I reached out to them and they were kind enough to lend me a Radio Ruck for me to use this weekend at the Mud Dog Run. Their packs are built to take a beating and I’m sure this one will have some fun in the mud in Maryland.

Stay tuned for an after-action report on both the Mud Dog Run and how the Radio Ruck serves me this weekend…

I’m back from my 10 day work trip to Minneapolis and Madrid. Things went well, especially in terms of the clothing and gear I brought with me. Packing light was the right call and I definitely brought the right stuff. Everything I brought with me was used at least 3 times, from nice button down shirts to my Trail Maker shorts (for the gym), to my Patagonia Houdini jacket. It would have been great to not have my MacBookPro, but even with that added weight, my pack was manageable.

The highlight of the trip was my arrival in Madrid. From the moment I set foot off of the plane, it took me just under 30 minutes to reach the hotel: 5 minute walk from the plane to the Immigration, 1 minute at Immigration, 5 minutes to get a cab, and about 15 minutes to get to the hotel, not far from central Madrid. Simply unbeatable.

Unfortunately while my gear was great, my travel situation was not. Originally my plans included seven flight segments in 10 days, going from DC to Minneapolis to DC to Madrid to Newark to DC. But United’s system outage two Friday’s ago lead to one of my flights getting cancelled. It ended up not affecting my ability to get to Spain on time, but meant I had to spend about 5 hours sitting around the Minneapolis airport. Coming home, weather in the midwest and south caused a domino of cancellations of Continental flights. The end result was me spending 9 hours in Newark airport waiting to get back home to DC. For a while it looked like the late flight I had been rebooked on might get cancelled after multiple delays, so I was mentally preparing for either legging it to get a late train to DC or spending the night at a hotel near the airport or in NYC.

While spending extended, unplanned stretches in airports is a bummer, I was never worried about what it would mean for the stuff I had with me. I had no checked bag, so if an overnight or alternative travel situation arose, I didn’t have to deal with getting a checked bag back. I was light so if I had to run for a train or bus, it wouldn’t have been a physical problem. I had plenty of clothes, plus stuff to wash the things I was wearing, so all I would need would be a sink and I’d be clean and fresh for whatever came next. In fact, the stuff I had with me would allow me to travel for days or weeks beyond what was planned with absolutely no additional stress or effort. This is the real virtue of packing light and packing the right things for my needs.

One last note. The GoLite Jam2 is a great backpack. I never filled it more than half way, though it would have been easy to over pack it. I didn’t do much shopping, though had I, I would have had the space needed to bring things home. While the roll-down, top-loading isn’t ideal for repeated access, it worked fine for my situation. It also allowed me to collapse the part of the pack that I wasn’t putting things in, making it feel smaller than the 50L that it actually is. I still think more purpose-built bags like the MEI Executive Overnighter or Tom Bihn Tri-Star are better for this sort of business travel, but the GoLite is definitely good in that you can use it for this stuff, but then do actual hiking and camping with it. Since having multiple applications of one bag is appealing to a lot of folks, this might make the GoLite actually a better carry-on pack than some of the high end, US built traveler bags.